Famed UFO Investigator’s Research is donated to MUFON

The late UFO investigator Leonard Stringfield ( 1920 – 1994 ) looked mainly into UFO crashes, but had his own close crash experience near the end of WWII which probably prompted his interest in the subject and influenced the rest of his life:

[…]”I was shocked to see three teardrop-shaped objects from my starboard-side window,” Stringfield wrote. “They were brilliantly white, like burning magnesium, and closing in on a parallel course to our C-46. Suddenly our left engine feathered, and I was later to learn that the magnetic navigation-instrument needles went wild. As the C-46 lost altitude, with oil spurting from the troubled engine, the pilot sounded an alert; crew and passengers were told to prepare for a ditch! I do not recall my thoughts or actions during the next, horrifying moments, but my last glimpse of the three bogies placed them about 20 degrees above the level of our transport. Flying in the same, tight formation, they faded into a cloud bank. Instantly our craft’s engine revved up, and we picked up altitude and flew a steady course to land safely at Iwo Jima.”

Stringfield walked away from the event frightened about what he had seen, and later heard independent reports from other witnesses that caused him to take a more serious look at UFOs.

He created Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO) and published the monthly newsletter, ORBIT. The newsletter caught the media’s attention and soon his paid subscribers swelled to 2,500, becoming the world’s largest civilian UFO research group of its day.

Then on September 9, 1955, the Air Defense Command (ADC), Columbus, OH, called on him for cooperation in passing along current UFO reports. The Ground Observer Corps (GOC) in southwestern Ohio was asked to call Stringfield with UFO activity and he was asked to call the ADC to report the better sightings.

In 1957, Stringfield became the public relations adviser for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), a new civilian UFO reporting group operated by Donald Keyhoe – a position he held until 1972.

In the 1970s he began collecting witness accounts of crashed UFOs that included accounts of alien bodies. He went on to publish seven reports on this material until his death in 1994. He served as director of public relations and as a board member for MUFON. He was a regional director for the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies. He was an advisor to Grenada Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy during efforts to establish a UFO research agency within the United Nations.

He published his first UFO book, “Inside Saucer Post 3-0 Blue” in 1957. Other books followed. His most famous, “Situation Red: The UFO Siege” was published in 1977 and subsequently translated into several languages. Later, he published seven reports on UFO Crash/Retrievals. The latest, “Status Report VII: Search for Proof in a Hall of Mirrors,” was published in February 1994.

In his private life, Stringfield worked for DuBois Chemicals, a division of Chemed Corporation, Cincinnati. He died on December 18, 1994, in his sleep one day after his 74th birthday after a long battle with lung cancer.

I often call modern ufology “ufoology” because all of the infighting of the various groups ( metallic ufo supporters, paranormal ufo and disclosure people ).

These folks will never see eye-to-eye and meetings are usually a Circus Vargus.

But Leornard represents a dying group of researchers that includes greats like Dr. James MacDonald, who actually performed meticulous recording, observations and scientific research. Going to Disclosure Conferences were not part of their repetoire.

I don’t know if MUFON is any better, but maybe some good use will come of it.